At present, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) has been widely used. With this service, a Service Provider (SP) can provide timely and efficient information services rich in content (e.g. various multimedia message functions) for different terminal users (e.g. a mobile phone user) to effectively improve user experience in the services.
In various MMSs, the Location Service Platform (LSP), compared with the MMS, is not widely used and hindered in development due to limited user right, different terminal capabilities and inconvenient network access. At present, the location service is mainly developed in the following forms: (1) a user accesses a Web portal providing the location service through a Personal Computer (PC) terminal; (2) a user accesses a Web portal providing the location service through a mobile phone over Internet; (3) a user acquires the location service through a third party software embedded or additionally installed in a mobile phone; and (4) a user acquires the location service through a short message.
However, in form (1), a user must have a PC terminal, but it is not portable, resulting in lack of flexibility and convenience; in form (2), a user needs to log in a Web page through a mobile phone, which is complex in operation, difficult in configuration in the mobile phone, and higher at cost; in form (3), software needs to be installed or embedded in a terminal, which is difficult to realize for those not familiar with a mobile phone and requires higher terminal capability; and in form (4), since a short message can only provide position description in text format rather than detailed position information in image format, the information provided is not intuitionistic enough, thus affecting the user experience.
At present, there is no effective solution proposed to solve the problem that the location service in the related art is unable to be developed normally due to the limit in terminal capability, terminal portability, information provision and so on.